was Helga’s husband, brother or friend. The minutes between Genifer hearing Helga screaming through an open window and when the ambulance arrived were confusing at best. She was enjoying a leisurely mid-morning walk one minute, and the next she was entering a house to find an elderly woman with a broken hip at the bottom of a flight of stairs.
With the adrenaline rush she’d been experiencing, there wasn’t time to process who the mystery man was and his possible role in Helga’s fall. Helga certainly hadn’t mentioned him to Genifer, the paramedics or the nice police officer.
Although Genifer had barely glimpsed the grey-haired gentleman, who was inexplicably wearing a tan overcoat, she believed she could identify him again if their paths crossed.
Clearly, and frighteningly, the man believed the same thing. Why else would he call Genifer at home a few hours later?
“You did not see me today, Mrs. Grant,” the thick accented voice had warned.
Staring at the big screen television as her Detroit Lions were lining up against her hubby’s Minnesota Vikings, Genifer had been distracted and said, “What did you say? Who is this? I think you have the wrong number.”
Undeterred, the man had gone on. “This is the right number. What we’re going to do to Helga is the same thing we’ll do to your lovely girls, Zoe and Aleena, if you breathe a word of seeing me earlier. One dead old woman isn’t worth risking your precious babies’ lives, is it?” The caller had paused, then added, “Are we clear, Genifer?”
Genifer had immediately hung up the phone and tried to process what the man had said. She had watched in silence as her girls role-played characters from the Iron Man movies and her husband bit a fingernail as the Vikings attempted a field goal.
The family life she knew and loved had continued to swirl around her body, yet her mind was in a suspended state of shock. It was only when Stan had walked out of the house, breaking the tension in the room, that Genifer had felt sick.
“Will Dad be okay, Mom?” Zoe had asked.
“In time,” she had managed to answer.
The last words Genifer had remembered before hitting the floor were, “Will you be okay?” and “Mom?”
In the ambulance, she had recalled a garbled conversation with Zoe about wanting to avoid the hospital. Something about ‘filling a baby’.
It had been too much for her.
Stan had followed the ambulance in his car and was with Genifer as they wheeled her into the Metropolitan Hospital E.R. department.
“Where are Zoe and Aleena? Did they come with you? Don’t let them out of your sight, Stan.”
Stan could see the panic on Genifer’s face and figured it was a by-product of her fainting spell, as well as being disoriented. “Your mom and Lisa rushed over and are going to take them to a matinee, then dinner at the mall,” Stan reassured her. “I’ll call them once we find out what’s wrong with you.”
There’s nothing wrong with me! Genifer had fumed internally. “Good,” she had said instead. “They’ll be safe at the mall with all those shoppers.”
As the admitting nurse had begun to pepper her and Stan with medical history questions, Genifer, in the same way Helga had, appraised her surroundings looking for anyone who seemed out of place. Regrettably, every race, sex and age group was represented in the nearby waiting area.
Is overcoat man already here?
A cold spike of fear ran up Genifer’s spine.
It wouldn’t take long for her to find out.
FOUR
TRILLIA
Trillia Johnston had struggled all her adult life to come to terms with the choices she’d made since high school. Never the classic beauty by definition, she’d been a popular student, particularly with the boys who liked tall, lanky and well-endowed dirty blondes. Her string of boyfriends during her teen years and one semester at university should have, but hadn’t, prepared her for the following two decades of romances found and lost, then found and lost again. Her love life had turned out to be an unmitigated failure: married to a struggling musician; divorced; engaged to an equally inept novelist who left her at the altar in a wedding dress that couldn’t conceal her pregnancy; and finally, being widowed when her absent-minded husband mechanic didn’t lock off a lift being used to remove a beater’s engine, which promptly landed on his chest as he was outstretched on the shop’s floor.
Despite these crushing heartbreaks, Trillia had survived and thrived in the areas that would define her as a good mother, a respected career woman and a loyal friend. Her daughter, Harmony Jane, had finished a two-year business administration course and was seeking marketing opportunities with local radio and television stations in Lunsden, a mid-sized city five hours away.
At The Buckster Stops Here liquidation store where she’d worked for nine years, Trillia had recently been promoted to Assistant Junior Manager. The new title required her to carry out additional duties, like staff scheduling, which added 3-4 hours to her own work week. At first she was upset, until she figured out as a salaried employee she could streamline the store’s operation and work fewer hours for more money. However, two pays into this lofty position had revealed the complete opposite. When she considered returning to her old position, she was told she’d be forced to leave the Buckster family. “We don’t employ quitters here,” the Junior Manager had replied in a harsh tone.
“Is that legal? Can they do that? I heard a radio commercial where a woman was in the same situation and she hired this law office to fight for her.” Elaine Stanton drank a mouthful of her tepid green tea, as Trillia joined her at the kitchen table. “I don’t remember the firm’s name, but I’m certain any lawyer could help you out, Trill. Maybe they would do it pro bono.”
“I doubt any lawyer truly works for free, unless I killed the store owner, then maybe,” Trillia said with a sigh, as she lifted her cup to her lips, inhaling the birthday cake flavoured coffee before taking a sip. “This is tasty. I might buy another box tomorrow, ‘cause once they’re gone, they’re gone forever,” she laughed, having repeated the store’s signature slogan.
“That’s the problem with liquidation places. The shelves are jammed with items the public has already deemed not good. It’s like buying last year’s unfashionable clothes at the close-out stores at the mall. Every month there’s a new pile of jeans and tops at half price,” Elaine said. “I don’t know how they can do that.”
Trillia smiled. “Two words: tax breaks. I’ve learned all about them since getting my promotion.” She pushed her mug toward Elaine. “Take this coffee, for instance. The company that makes it decides it’s not going to be a money maker and stops production. Unfortunately, they have 100,000 single-serve cups collecting dust in the warehouse. They then write off the inventory as an expense and sell it to stores like Bucky’s for ten cents a cup. Bucky’s then turns around and sells it at sixty cents a cup!”
“What? That’s like a 40% profit,” Elaine said shaking her head. “I wish I owned a Bucky’s store, instead of working in the hospital kitchen. I’d be rich.”
“You would if you got your employees to work extra hours for free, like me.” Trillia stood and walked to her purse on the counter, where she retrieved two $20 bills, which
